Frost and snow put Irish racing fixtures ‘in the lap of the gods’

The current cold weather has Ireland’s next racing fixture at Down Royal tomorrow “in the lap of the gods”, but officials at Leopardstown are “not unduly concerned” about freezing temperatures affecting Sunday’s prestigious Hennessy Gold Cup fixture.

Leopardstown manager Pat Keogh believes it will be daytime temperatures that will be of most relevance to the Dublin track and is encouraged by the outlook.

Daytime temperatures

“We had a frost last night but would have had no problem racing today. It all depends on what daytime temperatures get to. We’re being told it will get to a few degrees below zero at night this week, but we’re also supposed to get reasonable daytime temperatures,” he said.

“Obviously it is something we will keep under review but we are not unduly concerned based on what we are being told about the week ahead.”

Of more immediate concern is tomorrow’s Down Royal card, with the track covered in snow early yesterday and judged to be unfit for racing, despite snow thawing quickly.

“It’s really the compound effect of frost over the weekend and two more frosty nights forecast and temperatures maybe getting as low as minus three.

"It's thawing out quite quickly during the day, but we need that to happen in the mornings and really, we're in the lap of the gods with Wednesday. Our objective is to get the meeting away and we'll probably have to wait until Wednesday morning to see what we can do. It's just typical February weather," said Down Royal manager, Mike Todd.

Parts of the Clonmel course were also frozen ahead of Thursday’s meeting and the situation will continue to be monitored. “The plan is still to race,” said manager DJ Histon. “It got down to minus four last night and we still wouldn’t be far from racing today.”